EDITORIAL: Prairie dog population | Editorials | swoknews.com – The Lawton Constitution

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Updated: September 19, 2022 @ 7:15 am

City of Lawton officials are once again casting an eye toward the prairie dogs in Elmer Thomas Park.
Officials say it is time to thin out the black-tailed prairie dog population. The last time the City carried out population control measures was in 2017 and 2018 when it received permission from the Department of Wildlife Conservation to use zinc phosphide products to bring the population back under control.
The love-hate relationship between the furry-tailed critters and City of Lawton officials dates back decades. The City has tried various methods over the years to keep the population under control, including catching and relocating them, confining them to one section of the park and poisoning them.
But the population continues to burgeon.
Officials say relocation efforts are not the best way to control the ever-expanding population. For some reason, people just don’t welcome the burrowing critters into their communities. Several years ago the City relocated a colony near one of the city lakes. It wasn’t long before the dogs began appearing on athletic fields near Apache and quickly wore out their welcome.
Several hundred found new homes in 1998 when the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge took some off the City’s hands to create a Prairie Dog Town half a mile east of Quanah Parker Lake. Another prairie dog colony exists near the Holy City in the refuge. And in 1997 the Fort Worth, Texas, Zoological Commission requested 50 of the critters. That year about 1,000 dogs were shipped off to new homes in Ardmore, Shawnee and Noble.
One year, eradication efforts were met with sign-waving protestors who were determined to protect the herbivores.
Undoubtedly, the dogs are a big tourist attraction, not only for out-of-towners but also for us natives. Who doesn’t enjoy watching young pups frolic through the park and disappear into their burrows when humans venture too close?
Unfortunately, they also are a bit of a nuisance. Lacking any natural predators in town, their numbers have skyrocketed. The females have one litter a year with litter size ranging from two to eight pups. Multiply even two pups per a few hundred females and year and well, you get the idea how they can literally take over a park.
With no predators, other than cars along Ferris, to help control the population, the squatters make new homes on Lawton Public School’s athletic fields, providing a potentially hazardous condition for athletes.
The dogs also know no boundaries. Not for the first time, the dogs have invaded O.H. Arnold Park behind Patterson Community Center. The lack of available grass in Elmer Thomas Park forces them to find new food sources, and they really don’t care if it is an athletic field or city playground. Or a neighbor’s yard.
So as painful as the decision may be, it appears the City has little choice but to enact some population controls so the colony in Elmer Thomas can remain healthy for all to enjoy.
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